Like A Bat Out Of Hell
by Eggo Waffles
Summary: Boromir of Gondor is dead. That's not the sort of thing he takes lying down.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimers:** I do not own _The Lord of the Rings._ In fact, the lease on Tolkien's intellectual property is so steep that I can't even afford to pay the rent. I am, in effect, a literary squatter. Please don't call the Thought Police on me—they've had to evict me three times already and I sense they're getting tired of it.

**A/n: **Move over, IHOP: the Waffle is back in the house!

(winces) Wow, that line sounded a lot better in my head than it looks on paper. At any rate—hello, everyone! Sorry I haven't updated anything in an Age and a half; the tyrannies of Real Life have schemed rather mercilessly against my writing habits. In order to tide you over, however, and give proof of my continued existence, here's a fic I whipped up a few nights ago while I was "studying" for "Algebra". I pin the inspiration for this somewhere between _Van Helsing _and _Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit_, which really says it all, I think. Enjoy!

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Night fell swiftly in Ithilien, the thick obscuring foliage of the brown-leafed trees conspiring against the swiftly-shortening autumnal days to cast the entirety of the forested realm in premature darkness. The moon had risen early that night, a bright and luminous eye winking against the ink-dark sky, but swirling black clouds from the west had since blotted it out, choking it with misted fingers. The last vestiges of silvered light cast strange, mottled shadows on the ground below, shifting and changing with the rustling trees, flitting like pale misshapen ghosts across the forest floor. The shivering of near-dead leaves was the only sound to be heard on this evening; the forest creatures and birds of the night seemed to have been struck dumb, even the fiercest predators fallen prey to the near-palpable pall of fear that had descended over the land.

Only one shadowy figure moved between the silver-trunked trees; navigating the suffocating darkness with instinctual ease, it moved in utter silence, not a twig or a frail-skeletoned autumn leaf stirring in its wake. With the shape of a man and the stealth of a beast, the figure did not need to use its eyes to penetrate the gloom; it could smell the very presence of the trees, could taste the salt of the distant Sea on the changing breeze. The figure was invincible in the comforting shadow of the night, and no living creature could escape detection under the scrutiny of the figure's far-reaching senses. The shadowy figure's mind was bent on but one purpose this night, its thoughts on one goal: survival. Sustenance. Blood.

Silently still, the shadowy figure proceeded onwards, guided by the keenness of its razor-sharp instincts, and with an ease that almost defied all natural law it

_Thunk._

"**_OUCH!_ **Who put that goddamn **(censored)**ing tree there?!"

From then on, the shadowy figure began wearing night-vision goggles.


	2. Bloody Weather

**Disclaimers: **I still don't think it's fair that Tolkien gets to own Boromir when it's clear that I love him 3,000,001 times more than Tolkien _ever_ did, but alas, such is life.

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It had all begun when Faramir happened to notice that his mare had sprouted fangs.

"This strikes me," he remarked to his groom the following day, "as not being quite normal. Ought I to be worried?"

The groom cast a lazy eye over the horse, which was currently staring at her trough of hay in a discomfited manner and periodically snapped at passing insects with her extraordinary teeth. "Not at all," the groom said knowledgeably. "Overdeveloped dentals are common in animals of lesser pedigree. Chances are, this one you've got here is a dud. I'd ask the bastards for your money back, if I were you."

"But it came from Rohan," said Faramir, somewhat suspiciously.

"More to the point," replied the groom. "Those Middle Men are sneaky little blighters, and they'll as soon scam you out of a good horse as not, especially given that most of us here in Gondor wouldn't know a good steed from an Orc's arse. The chances of you getting a genuine thoroughbred from a Rohirric auction are about as strong as your chances of, say, getting an actual woman in a Rohirric brothel."

Faramir nodded in tacit agreement with this sentiment. He himself had once fallen prey to such an unfortunate mishap while holidaying in Edoras, and there were very few Gondorians who didn't have at least one ugly experience in a Rohirric brothel to their names. "What about this, though?" he asked, pointing to what appeared to be two crimson pinpricks on the mare's flank. "It almost looks like a bite of some kind. Where could that have come from?"

"That'd be flesh-rot," the groom declared promptly after a cursory glance at the wound. "Also common in inferior specimens. Next time you decide to buy a horse, my Lord, I'd advise that you bring your wife along—no offense to yourself, of course. Who'd you get this one from?"

"My brother-in-law," muttered Faramir.

"Ah, well. _That_ explains it," nodded the groom. It did. The enmity between Steward Faramir and his royal sibling-by-marriage was hardly a secret in either of their domains. With this understanding, Faramir decided that perhaps the dental peculiarities of his horse were not so very inexplicable, and resolved to supplement the next cask of birthday wine he sent to Éomer with the contents of his own chamber pot.

Strangely, however, the maladies that had befallen Faramir's unfortunate mare did not remain confined solely to a single beast. They spread insidiously through the entire stable, and, with each passing day, more horses were found to have acquired razor-sharp canines, transformations which apparently occurred (quite literally) overnight. Frantic with anxiety, Faramir fired the groom and had all the horses put down—a move which so greatly angered Éowyn that Faramir was subsequently banished to the sofa in the living room for three weeks—but the bizarre taint refused to be contained. Shortly thereafter, all the rabbits in the immediate vicinity of Emyn Arnen began to exhibit a whole host of remarkable tendencies—forsaking their usual feed of carrots and clover, they began to eat mice and small squirrels, were seen frequently to attack cats and other larger animals and, on more than one occasion, leapt viciously upon tenants at work in their vegetable gardens, all of whom reported that the creatures were more unnaturally sharp-toothed, needle-clawed, and blindly feral than a Warg bitch in heat.

Faramir did his best to bring these strange antics to a halt, organizing exterminations of the rabbits and their usual habitats, but superstition and discontent began to fester in Ithilien. Whispers were heard of dark powers, powerful remnants from the days of Sauron, called forth from the Morgul vale, and Éowyn herself expressed the opinion to Faramir that there were "dwimmerlaiks" abroad.

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," scoffed Faramir. "It's the Fourth Age, my dear. Surely you don't give credence to those sorts of wives' tales."

"You do realize," said Éowyn, somewhat sourly, "that you're speaking to a woman who slew an undead Ringwraith only last year."

"Well, if you slew it, then clearly it wasn't _actually_ undead, was it?" put in Faramir reasonably. "You have to think these sorts of things through rationally, love."

"Here's a rational thought for you: tomorrow, I'm going to Rohan on an extended vacation. I'm not sure when I'll be back," replied Éowyn coldly. "Have fun with your little rodent problem."

"Does this mean that I get to move back into the master bedroom?" asked Faramir hopefully.

"It most certainly does not," said his wife sternly. "You are to continue sleeping on the sofa until I return and instruct you to do otherwise. Don't think I won't be able to tell if I find you've disturbed so much as a single pillow on that bed, and then, then you'll wish that dwimmerlaiks were the least of your worries."

True to her word, Éowyn was gone the next day, off to Rohan on a horse she had commissioned specially from Lord Aragorn. Faramir was, of course, mournful at her departure, but he managed to derive some comfort from the knowledge that she brought in tow the very special wine cask that Faramir had most particularly insisted that she deliver to her brother.

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It was a dark and stormy night. That is to say, the night was stormy, and the night was dark, but only during the seven-second intervals between lightning flashes, because the lightning was actually quite bright, much brighter than daylight, in fact, and not at all dark in any way. Perhaps that made the phrase "dark and stormy" an oxymoron. Faramir wasn't sure. He supposed that there might be some storms that did not have lightning, but he couldn't remember having ever seen one as such. Then again, he _was_ dreadfully tired and might not be remembering properly anyway. It was all very confusing. Faramir massaged his bloodshot eyes with the heels of his palms. It was god-knows-how early in the morning and he was sure he hadn't slept a wink. Perhaps it was the singularly uncomfortable nature of the living room sofa. Perhaps it was the singularly rhythmic tapping of the rain against the window, the sound of which seemed to rattle around the confines of Faramir's skull like a pinball in an arcade machine. Faramir tried very hard to remember what a pinball was and what an arcade was and couldn't put the two together, and decided that he really needed to stop using metaphors full-stop because they clearly gave rise to much more insomnia-induced mental disorder than they were worth.

Given the distorting quality of the lightning and Faramir's exhaustion-fuddled state, it was perhaps not unremarkable that it took him ten full minutes to realize that the persistent tapping on the window was not the pitter-patter of rain, but of fingers—fingers which belonged to someone who was standing outside on the windowledge, peering in at him.

Faramir gave a start and propped his upper body on his elbows, blinking confusedly. There was someone standing on the windowledge. There was someone standing on the windowledge. Why was there someone standing on the windowledge? Faramir strained his eyes, but the rain-fogged glass and the capricious light prevented him from discerning anything more definitive than a dark silhouette. Someone was standing on the windowledge, and that someone clearly wanted him to open the window. That was why he was tapping on the window. Ought he to open the window? Faramir blinked again. If someone had been breaking in through the window, then Faramir would have known very well what to do, but, so far as he was aware, it was not the accustomed method of burglars to huddle on windowsills in the rain and politely knock until they were let in. But if this was a legitimate visitor, then why didn't he just use the door?

Maybe the foyer was flooded, Faramir thought dully. Maybe the rain had wiped out the entire first floor, and some poor sod had taken refuge on the windowledge to escape the rising water. In that case, it would be terribly rude not to let him in. Faramir did not very much like being thought rude. That was the kind of thing that destroyed PR, and Eru knew he'd had enough of that with the whole business about the rabbits.

Faramir sighed, clambered off the couch, and cranked the window open a crack. "Hello?" he asked hoarsely, tentatively, squinting at the figure through the spitting rain. He was swaddled in a dark cloak and appeared to be wearing some utterly ridiculous goggles, but beyond that he couldn't make out any features.

"It's about bloody time, little brother!" said the figure irritably. "Are you aware that your windowledges offer absolutely _no_ protection against the rain? It's abominable, is what it is. Your architects have clearly made no provisions for this sort of thing."

Faramir stiffened. He _knew_ that voice!

"B-Boromir?" he croaked. "Whatever are you doing on the windowledge? Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Faramir thought that Boromir might have rolled his eyes, but the goggles made it difficult to tell. "To your first question, yes. To your second, because I happen to be fond of windowledges. To your third, yes, but there were complications. Now, would you mind opening the window a bit further"—he gestured vaguely toward the glass—"and letting me in? It's very cold and wet out, and I've only just had to outrun an entire mob of villagers with torches and pitchforks. Bad-tempered lot, your subjects. Might want to think about giving them a tax break or something."

Faramir didn't really know how he was supposed to respond this, and so he shrugged and opened the window. Boromir clambered into the living room awkwardly, and Faramir quickly shut the window again after him.

For a moment, they just stood on opposite sides of the sofa, regarding each other silently. The hem of Boromir's cloak leaked rainwater quietly. Faramir winced. That stain in the woodwork was going to be difficult to explain to Éowyn.

Presently, Boromir spoke. "You look like hell, little brother."

"Funny," replied Faramir, "I was just about to say the same thing."

"Except that the comparison applies somewhat more literally in my case," replied Boromir lightly. "Tell you what—you look as if you're in need of a few decent hours' rest. Why don't you go back to bed? I can shift for myself tonight. We'll talk later. Where are your kennels?"

"My kennels?" asked Faramir confusedly.

"Well, never mind, I'm sure I can find them on my own. Sweet dreams, little brother," added Boromir, and he strode from the room as comfortably as if he owned the place, leaving a dribbly trail of mud and water in his wake. Faramir stared after him for several minutes, all power of speech lost to him, before finally shrugging resignedly and lying down once more on the now-damp sofa, resolving silently that he was never going to mix Prozac and Benadryl ever, ever again.


	3. Still My Beating Heart

**Disclaimers: **1. Whoever owns _The Lord of the Rings_ must necessarily have huge amounts of money. 2. Eggo Waffles does not have huge amounts of money. _Ergo: _3. Eggo Waffles does not own _The Lord of the Rings._

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Faramir woke the following morning with the memory of his pharmaceutically-fueled dream still fresh in his mind, his stomach roiling with hunger and his brain troubled by the presence of watermarks on the hardwood flooring, and so when he opened the pantry door and found Boromir hanging upside-down from one of the upper shelves, he was not nearly as surprised as one might suspect.

Of course, he still dropped the jar of raspberry preserves he was holding and let out a bloodcurdling shriek that succeeded in touching an octave he hadn't hit since his prepubescent days, but he managed to not to faint or do anything similarly silly. This, he felt, showed vast levels of self-restraint.

Boromir opened one eye blearily and winced at the thin sliver of sunlight that had been allowed into the dark space by the partially-ajar door.

"Would you shut the damn door already? I'm trying to sleep, you know."

"This is _my_ pantry!" sputtered Faramir.

"All the more reason not to come barging in when someone's having a nap. It's not hospitable."

"The rules of hospitality," declared Faramir peremptorily, "extend only to guests. You are not a guest. I didn't invite you here, and I certainly didn't give you permission to sleep in my pantry."

"You let me in, didn't you? Doesn't that make me a sort of... guest-by-default?" ventured Boromir, shuffling along the bottom of the shelf to avoid the light.

Faramir opened the door wider. "It makes you an intruder," he said. "Besides, you're dead. I don't allow dead things in the larder."

"Tell that to this can of albacore tuna," replied Boromir, nodding to a can near his head. "Then again, I've never been entirely convinced that that stuff is real. Imrahil's a sneaky bastard. Did you know that all the collection bins from his rubber-recycling program go straight to his fish-processing factories?"

Faramir glared at him. Boromir sighed.

"I can't come out, Faramir."

"Why not?" demanded Faramir.

"The sunlight. It... bothers me."

"I'll get you a bottle of sunscreen."

"That won't do. Close all the curtains and shut the doors, and I'll see what I can do."

Grumbling, Faramir shuffled about the kitchen, pulling drapes closed as he went. As the door to the foyer (which, Faramir noticed with some irritation, was not flooded at all) snapped shut with a dry _click_, Faramir called out, "Well? Is that better?"

"Much," said Boromir, emerging from the closet and standing easily in the center of the room, much more relaxed now in the renewed darkness. "Nice kitchen you've got here."

"My wife would be very pleased to hear you say that. I personally could have gone for fewer spice racks and a beer fridge," replied Faramir. "Well, since you're here, I might as well make you breakfast. What do you want? Eggs? Waffles?"

Boromir waved his hand dismissively. "Never mind. I already drank."

"Liquid breakfast for you, huh?" replied Faramir. "Well, if there's anything stronger than cranberry juice in this house, you'll have to tell me where it's hiding. I certainly haven't had a whiff of it since Aragorn's coronation. And I needed quite a lot after his acceptance speech."

"No, no, I didn't mean alcohol," clarified Boromir. "I just nipped down to your kennels. The bloodhounds, as their name suggests, were especially good."

Faramir, who was in the process of popping a waffle into his toaster, turned around very, very slowly. "Do you mean to say," he said in a low, deliberate voice, "that you... ate... my hounds?"

"Oh, no, not at all. Just their blood," replied his brother quickly. "It didn't do them any harm, I promise. Actually, you may very well be thanking me later. Their tracking skills will be very much improved, and as for their teeth"—and here he smiled broadly, and Faramir noticed for the first time that he now sported extraordinary long, sharp canines—"well, let's just say that I pity the next thief who tries to break into _your_ chicken coop."

Teeth. Blood. Bite marks. It all clicked suddenly in Faramir's mind.

"The horses... the rabbits! That was _you_ all along!" he cried accusingly at Boromir. "You... you... do you have _any_ idea how much trouble that whole business has cost me?"

"Well, ex-_cuse_ me for needing sustenance to survive, little brother," said Boromir, rolling his eyes again behind his green-tinted goggles.

"But... blood! Why blood? Why can't you just settle for cornflakes like everybody else? Why do you have to be so difficult all the time?" Faramir complained, gesticulating furiously with the container of syrup he was holding. "And what's all this about 'survival'? You don't need to 'survive'. You're _dead._"

"And yet here I am in your kitchen."

"Much to my chagrin."

"I would've thought you'd be happier to see me. After all, we are—were—rather close, you know."

"Close is one thing. Bursting into a man's house in the middle of the night and sleeping in his pantry and drinking his livestock's blood and Valar-knows-what else is something else entirely."

"I didn't exactly 'burst in', did I? After all, _you_ opened the window."

"A decision I'm increasingly beginning to regret." Faramir sighed discontentedly. "Well, go on and explain. There _is_ an explanation, I trust?"

"Of sorts. I _was_ dead for a while," said Boromir, perching himself on the edge of the counter. "I came down the river in a boat..."

"Yes, I saw you. Thanks for that, by the way; it was a real treat being the one who had to deliver that piece of news to Father."

Boromir's expression became exasperated. "You're right, Faramir. I got myself shot into a pincushion with poisoned arrows and then floated myself down to Osgiliath for the express purpose of making you miserable."

"It's nice to hear you to finally acknowledge that."

"My pleasure. To continue," said Boromir, "the Anduin carried me all the way to the Bay of Belfalas and out to sea. I was sort of semi-conscious of everything that was happening, but it didn't feel like it was happening to _me_, if you know what I mean—like those dreams you have where you're yourself and somebody else at the same time."

"I'm almost convinced I'm having one of those right now."

"So I was buffeted around in the Sea for a while—I'm not sure how long, maybe hours, maybe years—and when I finally woke up, I was in Aman."

Faramir gasped. "You woke up in _Aman?!_ The true West? The Undying Lands? Eressëa? _Elvenhome?"_

"Yes, Faramir," said Boromir in a dull voice. "Elvenhome. The Home of the Elves. I suffered and died and floated all the way to a country full of Elves. Elves prancing. Elves singing. Elves reciting poetry. Elves singing poetry about other Elves prancing. Elves, Elves, Elves, Elves, Elves, Elves. Everywhere. Elves."

"That sounds wonderful!" cried Faramir rapturously.

"I hated it," said Boromir flatly.

"You _what?"_

"I hated it. It was like being back in Rivendell for the Council of Elrond, only about ten thousand times worse. I couldn't get away from the pointy-eared fiends. They were _everywhere_, like some kind of lavender-scented pestilence. There was only one other Man in the whole damn place, and he turned out to be Elrond's grandfather, of all **(censored)**ing things!" Boromir buried his face in his hands, as if caught in the grip of some traumatizing memory. "I tried to kill myself three times, actually, but apparently that sort of thing doesn't work when you're already dead. So, finally, I applied to Mandos."

"_Mandos?!"_

"Yes," said Boromir, "Mandos. I didn't have a song-and-dance routine worked out like that trollop Luthien, but apparently I made a fairly compelling argument. As it turns out, I was sent to Aman to atone for my sins."

"Your sins?"

"For failing the Fellowship. Apparently my deathbed apology to Aragorn didn't cover the bill. It was decided that Elvenhome was the place where I would be the most miserable, and so, instead of being sent to the sweet hereafter, I got shipped there instead. But Mandos apparently has no great love for Elves, either—mincing nancy-pantsed pansy-faced tree-**(censored)**ing freaks that they are—and I managed to convince him that my so-called crimes didn't warrant the punishment. So he arranged this instead."

"And what exactly is 'this'?" asked Faramir curiously. "What _are_ you? Are you alive or dead?"

"I'm not entirely sure," said Boromir thoughtfully. "I haven't got a pulse or a heartbeat, and I don't need to breathe. But I have to drink plenty of blood—fresh blood—or I get weak and lethargic. Same thing if I stay out in the sunlight too long—that's why I sleep in dark places during the day and hunt at night."

"Can you get hurt?"

"I can feel pain like I used to, but I don't seem to sustain lasting injuries. I heal quickly," said Boromir. "Truthfully, I haven't experimented with it all that much. I'm afraid that if I kill myself off by accident I might end up back in Aman."

"I don't see how you can think this is better than Aman," replied Faramir, somewhat grumpily. "I mean, you have to live in darkness and obscurity and isolation and live off _blood_, for Eru's sake! Are there _any_ benefits to this condition of yours?"

"Well, my sense are much sharper—well, all except my eyesight. Hence the need for these," said Boromir, tapping his night-vision goggles explanatorily. "But I can smell and hear much better. And I can hang upside-down from ceilings, like you saw earlier. Oh, and the sex is _amazing."_

"The _what?" _cried Faramir.

"The sex. Believe me, the kind of action I get now makes all those escapades of mine they used to gossip about in the barracks sound like kissing games," said Boromir, grinning smugly and baring his fangs again. "I don't know why, quite frankly—you'd think the teeth would put people off or something. It must be the ceiling thing. Would you believe that sex on a ceiling is about three times better than sex on a floor?"

"But you... how can you..." Faramir blushed heavily. "I mean, you haven't got a pulse. How do you... if there's no circulation, how does the blood get to..." He stammered and trailed off. "Oh, never _mind."_

"You always did have a terrible tendency to overthink these sorts of things, Faramir," said Boromir pityingly. "That's the reason your sex life was never as colorful as mine. Take that one time in that Rohirric brothel, for example..."

"I _DON'T_ want to talk about that," cut in Faramir sharply.

"Fine, suit yourself," replied Boromir carelessly. "I'm just saying."

"So that mob of villagers you mentioned last night," said Faramir, hastily redirecting the conversation. "What was all _that_ about? Someone not like your technique?"

"Actually, some farmer caught me in his henhouse, drinking blood from one of his chickens. It sort of escalated from there." Boromir shrugged. "I honestly don't see what all the hullabaloo was about. Whoever heard of so much fuss over one chicken?"

"Clearly, you weren't around when King Elessar and the Gondorian Board of Public Health put out that Avian Influenza Pandemic report last summer," said Faramir. "I guess I should almost be glad that the whole rabbit affair came up and took everyone's minds off birds for a while. Speaking of rabbits," added Faramir with a frown, "... the animals you bite—that you take blood from—they don't... die, do they?"

"No. That's one of the weirder aspects of my situation," said Boromir. "When I bite something, it takes on all the characteristics of my condition—the teeth, the bloodlust, the aversion to sunlight, the insane copulatory urges. I haven't been able to figure out why."

"So, if you bit, say, me," said Faramir, "then I would become just like you?"

"Are you offering, little brother?" said Boromir, licking his lips. "Because I am a bit peckish, now that you mention it—"

"Certainly not!" exclaimed Faramir, leaping a pace further away from Boromir. "I was just asking a hypothetical question!"

"Well, let me know if you change your mind," said Boromir, sounding a little disappointed. "It might be good for you. Improve your night-life, if you know what I mean."

"I'm perfectly satisfied on that score, thank you _very_ much," said Faramir stiffly.

"Really, now? Is that why you're sleeping out on the couch, then? Wife too busy with her horseback-riding to make time for other recreational pursuits?"

"My _wife_ hasn't been able to do _any_ horseback-riding since you _bit_ all our bloody_ horses!"_

"Well, then I'd think you'd be thanking me for freeing up her schedule, now wouldn't I?"

"You... you are _intolerable!"_ burst out Faramir, overcome with irritation. "Clearly it takes a force more powerful than death or Mandos to endow you with so much as an ounce of maturity!"

"I'm endowed with far more than a few measly ounces of maturity in the one place where it matters," said Boromir wickedly.

"Oh, shut _up. _You _know_ that wasn't what I meant."

"Ah, don't be such a wet blanket, Faramir," said Boromir. "Admit it. You've missed my brotherly banter."

"I most certainly have _not."_

"Yes, you have."

"No, I haven't."

"Have."

"Haven't."

"Have."

"Haven't."

"Have."

"Haven't."

"Have."

"Haven't."

"Have."

"Haven't."

"Have. Oh, and your waffles are burning, by the way."

Faramir turned to check the toaster, and Boromir lunged forward and bit Faramir on the neck.

"Sorry," said Boromir several minutes later, drawing back and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I guess I was hungrier than I thought."

"Well, I suppose it was rather stupid of me to fall for the waffle trick," said Faramir resignedly, rubbing his neck. "That was the one you always used to do when you wanted to steal my coffee in the morning."

"Some things never change, eh?"

"Except when you stole my coffee I used to be simply caffeine-deprived, as opposed to transformed into an undead bloodsucking creature of darkness."

"There's actually not a huge difference. You were always unnaturally dependant on your morning jolt."

"Hardy ha ha," muttered Faramir. "So what happens now? I don't feel any different than before."

"It may take a while for you to feel the full effects. Oh, but think of the fun we'll have, Faramir!"

"Drinking rabbit blood and running from angry villagers? Yes, I can hardly _wait,"_ replied Faramir, rolling his eyes.

"Well, we _could_ do that. Or," Boromir said, with a meaningful glance, "we could test out the possibilities of your kitchen ceiling."

"_What?"_ exclaimed Faramir, utterly horrified. "I... are you suggesting...?"

"Exactly what it sounds like I'm suggesting."

"But... but that's _sick!_... and, and _wrong_... and, and..."

"Oh, come now," said Boromir dismissively. "For crying out loud, Faramir, we're undead bloodsucking creatures of darkness; we're not tied down to those sorts of finicky social constraints. And, after all," he went on, his voice suddenly playful, "it's not as if we're _blood_ relatives anymore!" And then he was clutching his sides in mirth at his own joke.

"You," said Faramir disdainfully, "are _such_ an idiot."

"And you're still a wet blanket, little brother," replied Boromir cheerfully, recollecting himself. "But wet blankets pose some entirely interesting possibilities of their own. What do you say?"

"Even if I was at all inclined to consider your suggestion, which," Faramir said, "I most decidedly am _not_—"

"Is this because of that brothel again? Because you really need to get over that sooner or later," interjected Boromir.

Faramir ignored him. "—the fact remains that those goggles of yours are the most decidedly unsexy things I've seen in my entire life."

"I could always take them off," said Boromir suggestively.

"You could," agreed Faramir, folding his arms and staring at Boromir pointedly.

"I could," said Boromir again, and took off the goggles, setting them on the counter next to the stove. When Boromir turned towards him again, this time looking more like a human being and less like a large primeval insect, Faramir found that the change impressed him favorably. He smiled broadly, and felt suddenly-long upper teeth brushing against his bottom lip. "Well, how do we get onto the ceiling?"

Boromir gaped. "You're serious?"

"Ah, why the hell not? Might as well take advantage of circumstances as they present themselves. So, what do we do?"

"Well," said Boromir. "It takes a little concentration at first. You have to sort of tense your muscles—"

"Already quite tense, thank you."

"—and imagine you're weightless... extend your arms a little... and—" Abruptly, Boromir shot about twelve feet in the air, collided with the ceiling with a sickening _crunch_, and fell back to the ground with a

_Thunk._

"**_OUCH!_ **Who put that goddamn **(censored)**ing ceiling there?!"

Faramir sighed. He could already tell that this was going to be a very, very, very long afterlife.

**The End. No, Really.**

**0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

**A/n: **_Suddenly, there was a noise not unlike ten thousand reviewers simultaneously pressing the 'review' button and furiously typing out the phrase, "What the _**(censored)**_ing_ _hell was _that_?!"_

Do review, if you are so inclined. Or, now that I finally have a new e-mail address (available on my profile page), you may feel free to PM or e-mail me instead. ;-)


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